As I stated in my guide to renovating your kitchen, splurging on good quality kitchen cabinets is usually a good idea when it comes to redesigning your home kitchen (especially if you’re looking to stay in your home for long term). High quality kitchen cabinets are usually composed of solid wood cabinet faces (e.g., maple), full plywood box construction, dovetail drawers, etc. Moreover, hiring a quality craftsmen to install your cabinets is always a good idea. For example, during our kitchen renovation our cabinet installer Brian was meticulous when it came to hanging lower and upper cabinets, preparing for the install of our farmers sink, installing crown molding, and attaching our cabinet latches and pulls.

One of the small details of our kitchen renovation that I had not given much thought to was cabinet hardware. In fact, the only thought I had when it came to selecting cabinet hardware was to head down to the local hardware store and select a moderately priced set of pulls. Well, as soon as I got a hold of some the “genuine brass” pulls and latches offered at the neighborhood Ace hardware store I knew they wouldn’t work in our new kitchen. The hardware store components were cheap looking, didn’t function well, and were of a low quality design and construction. That’s when I stumbled upon Horton Brasses via a recommendation from the GardenWeb Kitchen Forum.

Horton Brasses, a Cromwell, Connecticut based hardware company, produces more than 1,000+ pieces of cabinet and furniture pieces, from kitchen cabinet pulls to clock finials! For our kitchen cabinets, we choose to go with a traditional pantry latch and drawer pull.

We ordered latches in both polished chrome and antique brass as well as pulls in polished chrome (The pulls and latches are available in seven finished). The first thing I noticed when I received the hardware was the overall build quality of the pieces. Each item had a high quality brass finish and the latches, specifically, had a high quality mechanism. In fact, I had some concern about using pantry latches for our upper cabinets because I heard horror stories about the mechanism failing after prolonged use, but the customer service department at Horton assured me their latches were built to last. And last they have for well over 3 years now! Horton’s hardware also comes with historically accurate fasteners (screws) that complete the look of the kitchen hardware.

Where Horton also shines is in the customer service department. I spoke to Amy at Horton several times via the phone/email about both replacement parts and technical issues and she was a pleasure to work with. Moreover, when one of the screw heads broke during a latch install because of tough hardwood and applying too much torque, a technician at Horton got on the phone with me and explained what drill bit to use when pre drilling, how to remove a broken screw head, and, generally, how to install the latch mechanism. The people at Horton went well beyond the typical customer service support call. What also gets me excited about Horton is how well priced their items are and, moreover, that the items are manufactured by the company in the United States. Horton isn’t a big company, but it’s the type of customer experience I had that makes small companies grow and earn an outstanding reputation for both product and customer service. Building a company is easy when you stick to the basics: great product, fair pricing, and outstanding customer service.

Comments

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Kitchens are the most expensive room in a person’s home. The kitchen in our home is 20 years old and our cabinetry is still in excellent shape. It is very worthwhile to install quality materials so that the components last a long time. Major renovations to a kitchen are not quick and disruptive the a family household. Spending money and time appropriately up front saves cost and frustration in the long run.

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Cabinet pulls are the tie between our cabinets and ourselves: they are what we touch when we open a door or pull out a drawer. There are several different types, five of which we outline here. If you’re working…

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